complex and involved interactions between multiple ethnic groups. However, the impact of two influences remains clear: the Europeans coming from the north-west – for example, the peoples of Bell Beaker culture (bearers of the dolmens culture, recently discovered in this island and dating back to the neolithic Bronze Age), and that from the eastern Mediterranean. Complex urban settlements become increasingly evident from around 1300 BC. According to Eric Cline's 1177 BC, the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah references the "Shekelesh" as one of the Sea Peoples that had attacked Egypt in the late 13th and early 12th centuries BC. Cline suspects these "Shekelesh" people may have been of Sicilian origin. The Phoenicians From the 11th century BC, Phoenicians begin to settle in western Sicily, having already started colonies on the nearby parts of North Africa. Within a century, we find major Phoenician settlements at Soloeis (Solunto), present day Palermo and Motya (an island near present-day Marsala). Others included Drepana (Trapani) and Mazara del Vallo. As Phoenician Carthage later grew in power, these settlements sometimes came into conflict with them, as at Motya, and eventually came under Carthage's direct control. The Phoenicians integrated with the local Elymian population as shown in archaeology as a distinctive “West Phoenician cultural identity”. Classical Age Greek period Sicily began to be colonised by Greeks in the 8th century BC. Initially, this was restricted to the eastern and southern parts of the island. The most important colony was established at Syracuse in 734 BC. Other important Greek colonies were Naxos, Gela, Akragas, Selinunte, Himera, Kamarina and Zancle or Messene (modern-day Messina). These city-states became an important part of classical Greek civilisation in which Sicily was part of Magna Graecia; both Empedocles and Archimedes were from Sicily. These Greek city-states enjoyed long periods of democratic government, but in times of social stress, in particular, with constant warring against Carthage, tyrants occasionally usurped the leadership. The more famous include: Gelo, Hiero I, Dionysius the Elder and Dionysius the Younger. As the Greek and Phoenician communities grew more populous and more powerful, the Sicels and Sicanians were pushed further into the centre of the island. By the 3rd century BC, Syracuse was the most populous Greek city in the world. Sicilian politics was intertwined with politics in Greece itself, leading Athens, for example, to mount the disastrous Sicilian Expedition in 415 BC during the Peloponnesian War. In Greek mythology, the goddess